The digital university and the shifting time–space of the campus

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the concept of translocality, of being ‘simultaneously situated’ in more than one place, in the context of ‘distance’ education in the digital university. The author works with the concept of critical time to propose an additional term, transtemporality, to also recognise the multiple times and temporalities engaged and interwoven in digitally connected spaces of work and study. The paper draws on interview material from an institutional case study of expansion in digital education, paying particular attention to student locations in time and space, arguing that recognising the shifting time–space of the campus is essential to supporting and teaching growing numbers of distance and part-time students. The author proposes that, rather than digital connections being viewed as a form of ‘reaching out’ from the university campus to the wider world, the digital university might be considered, in its translocal and transtemporal form, as an opening up of the idea of the university; embodied and imagined through strong connections across multiple locations, times and temporalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital university
• distance education
• translocal
• space
• time

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Philippa Sheail is a Lecturer in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, based in the area of digital and higher education, but also drawing on organisational theory, cultural geography and social theories of time.

ORCID

Philippa Sheail http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0635-0760